The European Migrant Crisis in Figures

Thanks to Todd Gardner at South Dakota State University (the other SDSU) for pointing out an article last week on the BBC News website that lays out the dimensions of the European migrant crisis. The article picks up data from the United Nations and Eurostat to provide a good overview of where people are coming from and where they are going. The focus is on asylum applications, since we can most easily track those people. You already know the short story--they're coming from Syria and going to Germany--but there is more to it, as the graph and map below show. In the first place, although Syria leads the list of asylum-seekers, Kosovo (technically still part of Serbia, although it claims to be independent) is second, right there with Afghanistan. Albania and Serbia are also on the top ten list, so three of nine below Syria are actually European countries whose residents are seeking asylum elsewhere in Europe. Keep in mind, of course, that Albania and Kosovo have high percentages of Muslim populations, so religion may be in the mix here, along with the fact that the migrants from outside of Europe are passing through these countries to get to Germany and other places, as I've noted before.

Now, the other important graphic from this story is the map of where Syrian refugees (beyond the internally displaced people) are located. We have all seen news reports chastising Middle Eastern countries for not taking in the Syrians. This map tells a very different story.

Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan are bearing the brunt of the Syrian refugee crisis--we need to keep that in mind as we continue to contemplate the Mess in the Middle East.